is it difficult for you to "let go" of negative experiences?

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Humans characteristically recall positive experiences they've had in life. It's considered unhealthy to recall negative experiences. We're encouraged to "let go" of the negative experiences.

That's hard for me to do. I'm not so sure recalling certain negative experiences that may simply be part of an overall memory is unhealthy.

Here's an example from my life to illustrate what I mean:

I like going to grocery stores when they're not crazy busy. I could spend hours looking at all the different products and I enjoy reading the food ingredients labels. Some years ago, however, my wife and I were in a local grocery store walking through the produce section and one of the workers was using a small "shop-vac" to vacuum up errant onion skins from the onion display. There was something dreadfully wrong with the vacuum as it was emitting a piercingly loud metallic screech. I was almost yelling out loud and my NT wife was also in discomfort. She found a store manager and told him about the issue and he, thankfully, told the employee to shut off the vacuum.

Flash forward to recently. My wife and I were on the subject of grocery stores. She knows I enjoy most of them very much. I proceeded to say: "You know that I definitely like going to grocery stores. Except for that time when that vacuum was making that piercing noise. I did NOT like it then!" She lovingly said in reply: "I know, but that was a long time ago and that was just one time, right?" I agreed. I will never forget that experience because of the vacuum.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE in which my wife has been less tolerant.............


Close to ten years ago, my sister got married. It was a happy and momentous occasion. Being her brother, my wife and I and our two children, who at the time were toddlers, sat up front at the reception as part of the "wedding party". I like cake and wedding cakes generally are even more delicious. I was very much looking forward to having cake at the end of the meal. We were nearing the end of the meal (getting close to cake time!) but our two children were clearly fatigued from the long day and were starting to get cranky and "antsy". My wife and I planned on leaving to head home after we had cake for that reason. I left the table to get one of our children some water or something right when the cake service was starting. When I came back to the table I was dismayed to see one of the groom's young nephews finishing the last bite of the piece of cake that was set out at my setting just before he started to enjoy his own piece of cake. Not to worry, no need for panic, I would just go get another piece for myself. HOWEVER.....it was just at that moment that our two toddlers finally had had enough and started melting down in impressive fashion. We had to leave abruptly. No cake for me.

Yes, I freely admit that through the years I have brought up the fact on multiple occasions, to both my wife and to my sister, that my brother-in-law's nephew ate my piece of cake. My wife says: "LET IT GO!". I told her she may be misunderstanding me in that I'm not mad about it, I don't lay awake at night obsessing about it, nor do I have ill will toward the nephew. More power to him. It's something that happened to me that was significant for that specific reason and the idea of never bringing it up again is hard for me to grasp. My wife says she never wants to hear about the cake story ever again. I think I'll be able to comply, but I'm sure if and when the story pops into my mind again, it will be hard for me not to bring it up.

Does anyone else have similar difficulty with letting negative things from the past "go"?

I definitely have trouble “letting go” of negative experiences, but I’m getting better at it as I’m getting older.

If I didn't "let go," I'd be a total wreck now!

If the experience was really bad, I will have trouble letting it go especially I see things or people that remind of that experience. When a person is rude to me multiple times I can't let it go because running into them somewhere or seeing their first or last name somewhere reminds me of the bad experiences they gave me.

Minor stuff is easier to let go of. I love Denny's. One time the service was painfully slow so I was annoyed about it for awhile. I love the food at Denny's so much that I still like to go there sometimes.

"letting go" is denial doctrine. Memory and understanding of negative experiences is what gives us a moral compass and what helps us fight for justice.

I think it is important to understand, and sometimes to seek and obtain redress.

When one sees just how hard it is to get redress, then one can really understand just how much our society is based upon types of abuse.

I didn't say "deny"----where did that come in?

I said...."let go." Never forget the negative things you experienced. Try to learn from them.

But just "let go." Don't make yourself miserable over those negative things.

Never "deny." That would be the worst thing you can do.

You aren't facing the pain until you try to redress it. The idea that you don't need to try and redress is a denial doctrine.

Say parent A sexually abuses child B. Child B will feel pain of betrayal and being used. But is this the more severe pain? Seems not to be.

Rather, when child B tries to obtain redress, then they will see how the legal system turns hand springs and how their are ruthless specialist lawyers who try to turn it back on the child. That is extreme pain because the child sees that the entire society is committed to denial and letting parents abuse children. And the child will see how much of their life and how many social opportunities have been lost because of this abuse, and because of the secondary violators telling them to "Let Go".

Then, it is so rare that a child can sue for monetary damages from a parent. The who world is full of secondary abusers, saying that the problem lies with the child, and the child is supposed to live up to the self-reliance ethic, and forgive and forget. So it goes no where.

I got involved in such a case and helped put one perpetrator into our state prison for a long time. I tried to get the daughters to sue for money, that is the least they deserve. But they have not. So much came down to their Pentecostal Church with their Letting Go and Forgiveness, and standing 100% with the father.

It is very rare for a child to be able to recovery damages.

You got any links to cases where an adult child has recovered civil damages from their parents?

No, everyone puts it back on the child.

Those telling people to "Let Go" are Secondary Rapists!

And this also applied to all forms of 'Therapy'. Show me the therapist who has flattened knuckles and knife and gun shot wounds from taking down perpetrators, if you want me to consider otherwise.

And the United States is virtually the only industrialized nation where a parent can disinherit their child. Western Europe, Latin America, increasingly Asia, the law does not allow it. Trying to disinherit one's child is in and of itself looked at as evidence suggesting abuse.

In my last communication to the DA and the Court, trying to influence sentencing, I tried to make the point that this perpetrator father was not a sole actor, but rather, child abuse was a built in core component of his church.

I explained about the churches outreach ministry to the poor and homeless, and how they put this on and serve food, in order so that they can lecture to people about letting go and about forgiveness, and tell them that the reason life is hard is that they don't do that, but that they "carry stuff around with them".

And I explained that of these daughters, if they had listened to their church, and taken the attitude that nothing happened and that really it is all their problem, then a few decades, failed marriages, failed attempts to get an education and build a career, those three girls could have ended up as clients of that churches outreach, and being fed the same lies and denial.

The guy got a lengthy sentence, and I have tracked his case through failed appeal attempts. He won't be out for a long time. But his church is still saturated with familial child abuse, because their theology says that children need to be broken. Its their version of the exaggerated doctrine of Original Sin. Their church and their movement preys on children.

"We are talking about letting go of small inconsequential things that are not worth being thought of - things that most people forget."

And so yes, people do forget them. They don't need to have anyone lecturing to them about Letting Go.

Fact is, our society is based on telling children to forgive and let go and deny the abuses perpetrated by parents. And huge huge harm is done this way. And some of the mostly widely read Autism / Asperger's advocates do little more than preach this doctrine in their books.

People preach Letting Go, because they don't want to face their own repressed pain, and because they don't want to have to undertake the hardest task of all, seeking and obtaining redress.

And the very worst are therapists and clergy. Their whole professions depend upon teach denial as a life strategy.

No links allowed since I am new,


Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child Paperback – October 15, 1998

by Alice Miller

The desire for revenge is what keeps many people down in the depths.